Windows 7 has been out and about for little over a week now, and as it turns out, Microsoft's new baby is doing relatively well. That is, according to the figures by NetApplications: Windows 7 already reached the 3% mark this weekend, and is already closing in on the 4% mark.

Before Widows 7 was officially released on October 22, the operating system already had a market share figure of around 1.5-2.0%. The operating system was available as a release candidate to "normal" people, but the final code was available to OEMs and MSDN subscribers too. In any case, it was already more popular than Linux, which can't seem to break out of the round and about 1% share.

After Windows 7's general release, its market share figure starting going up, reaching the 3% mark over the weekend. On November 1, Windows 7 had a share of 3.67% according to NetApplications' figures. Not bad for a brand new operating system release.

"The early adoption of Windows 7 looks very strong, and I don't believe Vista enjoyed the same early success," said Vince Vizzaccaro, an executive vice president at Net Applications, "Plus, we've seen surges the past two weekend days, and Windows has historically seen much higher usage market share on weekdays than on weekends."

To put it into perspective: In October, Mac OS X (all versions) had a market share figure of 5.27%, whereas Linux sported a 0.96% figure. At this rate, it will only take a few days for Windows 7 to be more popular than Mac OS X. Predictable, yes, but it does illustrate that no matter how much Apple dominates the news, its worldwide market share figures are relatively low - let's not even get started about Linux.

Still, Mac OS X's market share is increasing, and it has been doing so for a while now. Windows 7 might be a bright spot for now for Microsoft, but by no means is it possible to tell if it put a halt to Mac OS X's rise.

As always, these are just figures and statistics, and should not be taken literally. They are indicative of trends, and should not be seen as absolutes.